Karim Khalef, 48, a former mayor of Ramallah in the...

April 1, 1985

TEL AVIV — Karim Khalef, 48, a former mayor of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank who was maimed in a 1980 car bombing and later deposed, died Saturday of a heart attack.

Elected mayor in Israeli-sponsored municipal elections in 1972, Khalef, a wealthy Christian and lawyer, was deposed in 1982 for refusing to cooperate with the Israeli civil administration on the West Bank.

In 1980 Khalef and Bassam Shaaka, mayor of Nablus, were maimed in car bombings that the Israel Security Services have said were plotted by members of a Jewish extremist group later charged with several anti-Arab crimes. Khalef lost a foot.